


Nineteen Times Five

by vanillafluffy



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-02
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'We dug coal together when we were nineteen.'... The story of best friends Boyd and Raylan, young and wild, boys becoming men in the unforgiving depths of the mine. Just barely slash. </p>
<p>Generated by amelia_17's inadvertant prompt of 'ambiguously gay duo', although I think it's more ambiguous than gay. I'll let you decide who the narrative voice is for yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nineteen Times Five

You're 19, and your daddy says it's time you pulled your own weight, because your high school diploma is a year old now and you haven't been able to get a job in town. The mine is hiring and you figure you have nothing to lose. Your best friend goes in there with you—he had a job, but they fired him from the car wash after four days when he 'accidentally' turned the hose on your former social studies teacher. You look forward to having some money, affording you the means to court pretty girls. For him, it's freedom, a way to get out from under his daddy's harsh scrutiny, and when you point out the fringe benefits, he rolls his eyes. Who would want a coal miner?

You're 19, and sometimes you blink like a mole when you come out of the mine after your shift. The coal dust is caked on every part of you. It's in your clothes and your boots and your hair. It's embedded in the creases of your knuckles and under your fingernails and in the bends of your elbows. And, though you stand in the shower 'til the hot water gives out and scrub yourself raw, you can never quite erase the acrid smell of coal dust and cordite, not even with after-shave, not even when you're wearing new clothes bought with your hard-earned money. You go to bars and dances looking your best and your buddy was right, because who would want a coal miner?

You're 19 and doing a man's job, but the girls you went to school with just give you that look now, the one that says you're nothing but another dirty miner, and she can do better. Any salesman, any plumber, hell, any fry-cook has a better chance of getting laid than you do. It makes you mad. You do crazy things because why not? if this is all there is. You spend eight-ten-twelve hours in a hole in the dark five days a week, drunk Saturday night and hungover on Sunday. And for what? You know some of your coworkers have sweethearts—even wives and children—and you wish you could summon the nerve to ask them how, because who would want a coal miner?

You're 19 and you feel doomed. Yesterday a man died in a rock fall, and it could have been you. Or your best friend, or the guy next to him. Just because it wasn't you, this time, doesn't mean you're off the hook. It could happen tomorrow, next week, five years from now...fate hangs over your head, all those tons of rock. Who would miss you if the mine took your life? You'd be a name and dates chiseled onto a stone in the family plot, leaving nothing behind and forgotten in a few short years. Maybe that's why Saturday nights are you and him drinking and looking for a fight to relieve the tension. Those sweet gals aren't eager to be widows. Who would want a coal miner?

You're 19, all your juices flowing, you've got needs, damn it, your nerves strung taut and restless. A year ago, you were a rail-thin, wiry kid, and now you're all muscle and sinew. You've noticed it, toweling off after those futile showers and one day, you're suddenly aware it's happened to your best friend, too. He's in the same fix when it comes to sexual release, so one weekend instead of going out and getting drunk, you invite him to go fishing. A little booze, some horsing around, one thing leads to another. Rough coal-stained hands stroke skin that never sees sunlight. He smells of coal dust and cordite and testosterone. You can live with that. Who would want a coal miner?

Another coal miner.

 

***


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